location
We are located at 1070 Huntington Drive in San Marino. It is on the south side of the street between the stop lights at St Albans on the east and Oak Knoll on the west.
In addition to parking on Huntington Drive in front of the church, there are two church parking lots. But, the only way to enter either one, is via the alley behind the edifice. This one-way alley (not shown on the map below) must be entered from Chelsea Road.
Our Beliefs
Like mainstream Christianity, Christian Science teaches the existence of an all-powerful God and the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Christian Scientists also believe the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to be essential to human redemption. Mrs. Eddy taught belief in one God and described God with the synonyms: Principle, Soul, Mind, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Christian Science also departs from traditional Christianity in several doctrines.
The fundamental distinctive teaching of Christian Science is that creation is entirely spiritual and perfect and matter does not exist. Sin, sickness and death also do not exist; we only think they do. "The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise" (Science and Health, 472:27-29).
According to Christian Science, humans are subject to the laws of matter only so long as we believe they are real. So just as in The Matrix Neo could mentally bend a spoon by realizing "there is no spoon," so Christian Scientists can heal themselves spiritually by realizing illness does not exist. (Note: This is a ReligionFacts analogy, not a Christian Science one.)
Christian Science described God as "Father-Mother" rather than the biblical "Father." Though unconventional, this is not a major departure from mainstream Christianity, since God is believed to encompass both male and female (both were created "in the image of God").
Christian Science teaches that Jesus is divine but not God, and that Jesus' human nature is a separate entity from the divine Christ. "Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God" (Science and Health, 361:12-13). "Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and sinning and destroying the power of death" (Science and Health, 473:10-17).
Heaven and hell are states of mind. Heaven is "not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal" (Science and Health, 291:13-16). It is "Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by the divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul." (Science and Health, 587:25-27). Hell is "Mortal belief; error; lust; remorse; hatred; revenge; sin; sickness; death; suffering and self-destruction; self-imposed agony; effects of sin; that which 'worketh abomination or maketh a lie.'" (Science and Health, 588:1-4).
Christian Science has no creed, but Eddy listed six "important points, or religious tenets" in Science and Health (496) as follows:
As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.
We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by theGalilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eter- nal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.